


Jasmine Dragon Tea

by birdyhands



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Episode: s02e18 The Earth King, Gen, Kinda, Oneshot, Sickfic, Tea, Tea Lore, The Jasmine Dragon (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:07:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29931807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdyhands/pseuds/birdyhands
Summary: When Zuko gets sick, Iroh reflects on the legend behind Jasmine Dragon tea as he does his best to heal his nephew.aka how Iroh actually came up with the name of the tea shop.Based on the real Chinese legend of the origin of jasmine dragon tea, which I thought bore parallels worth exploring.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	Jasmine Dragon Tea

**Author's Note:**

> So basically, I'm a huge tea nerd. I spend way too much money on rare teas, read books about tea, take classes to develop my knowledge and appreciation of it, and have achieved the nickname of Uncle Iroh among friends. 
> 
> Jasmine Dragon Pearls refers to a specific way of preparing and hand-rolling jasmine scented green tea leaves. (if you are looking to try, they are frequently also known as jasmine dragon phoenix pearls). This fic is based on the actual Chinese legend behind this type of tea. There were certain parallels that I wanted to explore given the context of the references to jasmine dragon in the show.
> 
> I have a lot of headcanons about tea in the atla universe and this is just one of many ideas that have been bouncing around in my mind.

If legend is to be believed, it was truly the dragons who taught the first maker of jasmine dragon pearls. The story begins with an orphan girl, her brother sick in a way no healer could remedy, driven by desperation up the mountain to the cave of the dragon.

As Iroh looks at his nephew, pale even against white linen blankets, sweat beading against the ridges of his scar and gathering in the dip of his upper lip, he wonders if any healer here would make a difference. He won’t take his nephew to a healer as much as he may wish to. Zuko’s temperature would reveal his ability to firebend to anyone competent enough to treat him. 

Instead, Iroh cups his hands around an earthenware pot and breathes deep and steady until he can feel the tiny fish-eye bubbles rising in the water. He opens the small worn box which holds the precious bundle of pearls that he’s been saving for some occasion or other. He had been hoping they would be celebratory, but fate has had other plans. He deposits several in the pot and continues to breathe, keeping the temperature steady as the carefully rolled leaves and blossoms begin to unfurl in the pot and their fragrance begins to fill the apartment. 

Jasmine Dragon tea is a healing tea by origin. Iroh will maintain that all tea is healing in some way, but the nature of this particular tea is seeped into its very history. 

The girl of legend had climbed the mountain until she was nearly lost among sharp rocks and bushes of jasmine when she stumbled upon the cave where the dragon lived. There, she begged to the fearsome dragon to please heal her brother. No cost was too high for the girl. Her brother was all the family she had left. They loved and depended on one another and to lose him would break her heart such that she was sure she would never recover. 

Iroh doesn’t let his thoughts dwell on the familiar loss that has stolen his family from him. Doesn’t allow his thoughts to imagine that loss in regards to the boy lying sweat-soaked, but still shivering in the afternoon heat. Surely if he allows his imagination to wander to those thoughts he will scald the precious leaves in the pot with the impact of his emotions. 

Instead, he fills his head with the determination of the young girl of legend. 

When the dragon had flown to the sky, bringing back a pearl in response to the young girl’s plea, she had been initially confused. A single drop of water had fallen from the pearl, and from the soil where the drop landed, a tea bush had sprouted. The dragon told the girl to care for the bush and that when its leaves had grown, to bring them back to her brother in order to heal him. 

Iroh lets the hopeful swell that the girl must have felt to fill his chest on the next breath. He hopes his own favor among the spirits and dragons might help him.

The dragon had flown off and as though to discourage her, rain had begun to fall from the sky in heavy sheets. The girl stayed by the bush all the time though, protecting it from the fierce winds and the torrential rain until finally, small leaves had graced the branches of the bush such that she could collect a large handful of them and retreat into the dragon’s cave to dry the leaves alongside a handful of buds that she collected from the jasmine bushes that surrounded the cave. 

Iroh channels the patience of the girl. He at least does not have to wait for leaves to dry and downpour to cease. Tea does not take so very long to seep, he tells himself although the minutes feel like hours with his nephew’s health in the balance. 

The girl had then, with careful fingers, wrapped the leaves and the jasmine buds together to form an approximation of the pearl from which the tea bush had sprouted. When the rain finally ceased, she had emerged from the cave and ran swiftly back to the village and to her brother, still prone with sickness where she had left him. 

Iroh has painstakingly wrapped these tea leaves months ago. His own hands are getting too old for the intricacies of it and he wonders if the practice is known in the Earth Kingdom, if he will be able to find a shop from which he can buy the leaves already wrapped. For the purpose of these leaves though, he would trust no one else’s hands. 

The girl had brewed the tea and poured a cup, blowing on it gently so that it would not be too hot for her brother. 

Iroh blows on a small earthenware cup and cradles his nephew’s head, guiding unconscious lips to a tea that he hopes, for Zuko’s sake, is more than just hot leaf juice.

The brother in the legend had been restored entirely and immediately, but Iroh clings to tea-leaf-drying patience as his nephew only swallows and groans in his unconscious state.

Iroh does not sleep that night. He allows the pot to perfume the apartment when his nephew turns his head away from the cup that Iroh presses to his lips and when the tea has seeped into bitterness, he does not hesitate to use all that is left of his precious collection of pearls. His nephew relents to Iroh’s encouragements to drink more and more as morning approaches and when the sun finally rises, Iroh can see the good it has done. 

The sweat of the previous night has dried and shivers no longer wrack his nephew’s frame. His nephew does not rise with the same exactness as he normally would, but the sun has only cleared the line of the horizon by a few degrees when he begins to stir and Iroh lets out a grateful murmured thanks to Agni and the dragons and the spirits that his nephew is healed. He thinks he will name the tea shop out of appreciation for their blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this short little fic, if you want to read more of my random headcanons about tea in the atla universe, let me know in the comments:) 
> 
> If you want to try dragon phoenix pearl tea, [Here's my recommendation](https://www.uptontea.com/jasmine-tea/jasmine-pearl-loose-leaf-green-tea/p/V00336/#V00336)
> 
> If you want a source for the legend as well as some other general info on this subject, [you can click here!](https://thedailytea.com/taste/know-your-tea-jasmine-dragon-pearls/)


End file.
